Liminal Space
by Imperial Pigeon
Summary: "Because you're a bully," Sif said. Loki fought back the sudden urge to laugh.


When the drinking games began, Loki beat a hasty retreat. He followed one of the lesser-known palace corridors out of the hall, the corridor snaking left and right until it let out in the palace gardens.

Stepping outside, Loki breathed in the sweet scents of the late summer blossoms, mingled with the prickly fragrance of the healing herbs his mother grew. He sank down onto a stone bench, feeling his heart beat calm. It was only when he had closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out, and open his eyes again that he realized he was not alone. Sif was picking her way down the path, as oblivious to his presence as he had been to hers.

Loki swallowed a curse. The gardens were his sanctuary – he hadn't realized Thor's compatriots even knew of their existence. Loki had already drank a glass more than was his wont, and any tolerance he had for the festivities had frayed as the night's exhaustion wore on. Valhalla, but he hated these events. The encircling crowds, the thickness of the air, the sweat, the eyes, always so close.

Loki seriously considered moving behind the bushes until Sif had passed, but mead and weariness made him slow. Sif was already rounding the path. Her face was damp with perspiration from the hall, but her expression was oddly peaceful – that is, until she noticed Loki. Then her face tightened and her muscles twisted into that oh-so-familiar scowl.

There was nothing for it. "Sif," Loki said lazily, raising his hand as if to make a toast. "You needn't have left the festivities to find me."

Sif's eyes narrowed. "I did not come out here for you."

Yes, Sif was reliable that way. "Than what did bring you out here?"

"The hall was getting hot," she said.

"You mean that Thor is drinking too much."

They stared at each other. Loki knew he had spoken the truth, but Sif hated to speak ill of Thor.

"Yes," Sif said finally. Then she gave a small shrug and sat down besides Loki on the bench. "Yes," she said again. "They are drinking too much, and it is hot and loud, and even laying out the men who try to grope me has lost its charm."

If truth-speaking was the game, the point went to Sif. "That explains why you left," Loki said. "It does not explain why you are here."

This earned him a curious look. "I like your mother's gardens," Sif said. Her bluntness disarmed him, as it often did.

"Ah – I like them too," he replied. Then, seeking to make up the lost ground, he added, "They are very beautiful, though, of course, you surpass even the most beautiful of the flowers here."

Sif's shoulders, which had loosened as they spoke, tensed again.

Emboldened, Loki leaned forward, placing a hand on his chest to signal his sincerity. "You hair has the satin sheen of a black rose, your lips are like the twist of a Alfheim lily, and when you smile, surely you outshine even the Star Gloria – "

"Stop it."

"You can't take a complement, Sif?"

Her eyes met his – dark, frustrated. "It's not a complement when you say it."

"Sometimes, Sif," Loki said to the garden, "I get the feeling that you don't like me very much."

The truth-game was not for the faint of heart, but Sif has never been a coward. "I don't," she said finally.

"And why is that?" Loki said, still watching how the fronds curved around the terrace, like a couple's embrace. He wondered how many more shadow-truths Sif would let her lips give shape.

She shifted beside him, uncomfortable, but the stillness of the garden offered no retreat. "Because you're a bully," she said.

Loki fought back the sudden urge to laugh. He opened his mouth to respond, but Sif wasn't done. She had turned to face him, her back held straight, as if this were just another sword fight on the training mat.

"You aren't kind," she said. "You laugh at kindness. You laugh at everybody. You attack people with words who cannot stop you. You know that I – " She broke off. "I am a woman and a warrior, and for some people this is a contradiction. And if that is the case, then that person, they challenge me, and we do battle face to face, and when I am the victor no man can belittle that victory. But you – you say a thing that has the shape and seeming sweetness of a flower, but there is poison in it that cannot be fought with any sword. You make your tongue a dagger and I do not – I do not understand why, for your own mother taught you daggers, and no person in Asgard better knows the way a woman fights. You yourself fight as a woman." She fell silent, as if her words had run out.

 _You fight as a woman_. Yes, Loki had heard that before. _And when a man calls me ergi, am I to challenge him – when if I win and use magic, no man will call it a true victory, and if I take up daggers against a sword and fall on the dirt, I must ever after live with the disgrace?_ _What dagger can I use_ but _my voice_?

"You are no woman, Sif," he said. Anger slimed his mouth, made the words sloppy, but he found them all the same. "You wear mail as a man does, fight as a man does – your needle is your sword and your only subtlety is that of steel. By any standard Asgard understands you are a man. Do not frown at me. If your spirit is a man's, then you are a man of Asgard, a warrior, and what has more honor than that?"

She was looking at him like he defied comprehension – the way they all looked at him, as if in him was nature perverted.

 _You are the bull_ y, _Sif_ , he thought. _You are more a man than me, and all Asgard knows it._

But that truth was too bitter, even for him.

"Go back to the hall," he said instead. "Drink yourself so sick that no one remembers what you look like under your armor."

She shot him a disgusted look and stood up. "I don't know why I bother," she said. "You are a snake." Without another glance she left, striding up the path with her hair swinging gently behind her.

 _A little weak_ , _Sif,_ Loki thought, resting his head against a tree trunk. _You might have gone with viper, coward, girl._

His head hurt, and the garden held no comfort now. Casting himself a shadow, he ducked back into the castle. He could still hear the noise from the feast – laughter distorted by the twisting pathways, so that it sounded ghostly and mocking.

When he reached his room, a servant was making the bed. Loki stepped up beside him and only then returned himself to visibility. The man jumped. "My prince," he stammered. "I did not see you. My pardons, I thought you were at the feast."

"Well, obviously I'm not," Loki said, showing his teeth. The man made a hasty bow and backed out of the room, his task left undone.

 _Yes, run back to the servant's hall, and spread your tales of Loki and his unnatural magics._

Slowly, he finished making up the bed, letting his mind drift as he tucked in the sheets and layered the blankets. The moon was high in the sky and doubtless the celebration would continue until dawn roused the hall.

Loki leaned back in bed, looking out the window. At that moment it scarcely seemed possible that he and Sif might be seeing the same moon.

.

.


End file.
